


Edits

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29725482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: Follows the episode "Letters." Max does some editing to what Major Winchester has written.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Kudos: 5





	Edits

In the wake of answering his gift of a New England leaf and the memories it conjures - just a year ago -  _ a year!  _ \- Honoria crunching through the leaves to annoy him, then spinning in them as they fell around her, so beautiful that his hands ached for a camera - he regrets his other missives, the callous things he had written. Well, he can make amends. Closing the leaf in a book for safe-keeping, he goes to the company clerk and demands his letters be restored. 

Max tries to hedge, to say he’s much too busy to hunt down three letters. Then he dissembles. 

“I can see them  _ right there _ , you incompetent creature! Give them here!” 

Max tries, valiantly, to avoid this, but Charles has the strength to bodily move him out of the way (Maxwell really is wasp-waisted enough for a skirt) and the reach to snatch up his letters… and find them completely transformed.

The words are still his - high class, Boston, Harvard-educated - but the tone has been gentled. The man that wrote these is his best self.

And Max looks  _ miserable _ . 

“An explanation, if you please? I know you are our clerk, but I do not recall employing you as a secretary, pretty as you might look in any boss’s lap.”

Even this attempt at humor, this compliment, does nothing to chase the downcast look from Max’s face. Sighing, he sits down and admits, softly, “I, uh, I changed ‘em, sir.” 

“Indeed. Why?”

“Because you aren’t like that, sir. Cruel.” He looks up, quick, but he can’t hold those eyes. “Not for real.”

“What are you basing this on, my dear?”

“I… I pay attention. Sir. To you. You’re real sweet - when you wanna be. To Kellye. To your sister. You’re even good about my dresses. To the Korean kids we had come through. I seen you cut their food up for ‘em like I bet you did for Honoria when she was little. That other stuff - when you’re mean - it’s jus’ ‘cause you’re scared, I think. And lonely.” 

It is a psychological profile that would impress Sidney Freedman himself. It’s accurate, too. 

“And how did you know to write like this? In my voice?”

“I told ya. I pay attention. I, uh, I like the way you talk. Even if I gotta look up the words.”

“You might have asked me, Max.”

“You’re usually throwin’ big words around ‘cause you’re upset. That’s when you say I’m not so smart, usually. Like a - a fungus. Or a rock.”

Charles flinches. He has said those things - and yet Max has been clever enough to know his heart, echo his voice, and see the good in him he’s apparently been doing everything to obscure. “I-I am so sorry. I was obviously very wrong.”

“ ‘s okay. It’s what pretty much everybody thinks. I’m used to it. I didn’t get to go to school y’know.”

“But you wished to do so,” he realizes aloud. Given the work he’s done with the letters, Max might have a future in journalism or literature, too! 

“Of course! Knew it wasn’t gonna happen - I could never afford it. Then the draft happened. But I learn stuff here - horse stuff from the Colonel and medicine stuff from the Captains and music and words from you.” 

“I could, ah, perhaps start choosing better ones. Kinder ones.”

“That’d be real swell, Major.” He almost leaves it there - but Klinger lives by the adage nothing ventured, nothing gained. “If you ever wanna, y’know, put ‘em in a letter…” 

“I had intended to write three, so I do have time on my hands. What kind of letter would you have of me?”

“A sweet one?” His body is tensed to fling itself sideways - to run if needed. 

“Maxwell, you wish a love letter? From me?” 

“... please?...” 

His autumnal symbol will not be his only gift this day, it seems. “It would be my pleasure.” 

He goes to write, smiling because he knows that he is launching a courtship. He does not know, yet, that it will be the last one of his life and that, years later, he and his beloved Max will pour over their correspondence (some tender, some risque) and rejoice over the road they took - the one that led them to spend the rest of their lives together, safe in each other’s arms.

End! 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for the tumblr reader who requested/suggested this premise!


End file.
